


The Wrong Memories

by robin_poppyqueen



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Angst, F/F, One Shot, POV Catra (She-Ra), S3E5: Remember, basically self-therapy, follows canon towards the end so major misery all throughout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-12-27 03:23:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21111860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robin_poppyqueen/pseuds/robin_poppyqueen
Summary: In a moment beyond reality, Catra gets all she ever wanted – so why does it feel like she lost it all already?





	The Wrong Memories

**Author's Note:**

> Long story short, I only recently stumbled upon She-Ra, the S3 finale crushed me and I had to get my feelings out. This is what happened. Nov 5 can't come soon enough.
> 
> Also, first fic ever so yay for me that it ended up being about my new favourite gay babes!

She always wore a frown when she slept recently, a funny crease between light-hued brows that could turn into something sinister when stared at too intensely. Catra sometimes reached her hand out to try and smoothen it with a careful finger, scared of drawing sleepy eyes to open up. She never woke up. But neither did Catra ever succeed in erasing the anomaly.

The smile when she woke up was like a key releasing shackles. It was dumb and it was way too sentimental for Catra’s taste but she couldn’t deny it. But she could hide it. She professed in it: one lopsided grin, one exposed fang on her bottom lip that usually caught at least a hurried flicker of the eyes from the girl under the blanket—who was on her feet in under five seconds, guaranteed, always so eager and ready and perfect—and one husky "Hey Adora" to wake her up, to make her open her eyes and smile. And all was good again.

Something had happened since Thaymore. Catra couldn’t deny it. She felt empty sometimes; like there was this hole in her ribcage and dread in her head and something told her the worst had happened, something had been ripped out, the world could as well end now. _She_ was gone. It only ever lasted a split-second. Then Catra was herself again.

Cadette Catra, best friends with now Force-Captain Adora, charge of the Mighty Sorceress Shadow Weaver, Pride of the Horde. The One and Only Catra, known for her cunning and swift agility, her sure instincts, her tongue just as sharp and quick as her claws. Hordak commanded her achievements, Shadow Weaver was proud of her – Adora smiled at her.

But Catra was not herself when she was around. Not really. Not anymore.

Adora filled it. The hole that was supposed to be nothing but an illusion. Filled it every time she woke up with a smile at Catra, challenged her to a run to practice, sparred with her in the hallways, walked alongside her as the guards paid respect to their new force-captain and her closest friend. Adora filled it when she nudged Catra after Shadow Weaver complimented Catra on her work. Adora filled it with her strong hands on the gaping hole.

It was as if things weren’t supposed to be as good as they were but they were. It was as if it was in any way hard to believe that this was happening to her but it was. And it was perfect.

* * *

She had come to watch the distance in a certain way. When they retreated to their not-so-secret hiding spot at the uppermost roof, where it was supposed to be just the two of them. Yet, since Thaymore it was them and something without a name living in the fine line of the horizon behind the Fright Zone’s waste and towers. It had always been their spot of calm but now Catra had to keep guard on Adora’s mind. It was still blissfully easy to snatch it back.

In those moments up there, Adora’s smile weighed in especially heavy. Her laughter was Catra’s triumph—she had won over this stupid, invisible thing that wasn’t even really there. Adora had chosen her. And Adora’s smile looked special up there as well: crowned by the depth of a purple sky, framed by bright hair catching the lights of the red and green hues of the Fright Zone and nothing else to distract Catra. That was her. Catra’s smile on her face.

One evening, she touched it, with the same careful finger that would try to erase the frown out of her dreaming face. Afterwards, Catra couldn’t believe that she had done it. But at the moment, there was nothing but the soft, silken warmth against her fingertip.

Adora had laughed. "What are you doing?"

Catra had frozen. Her fingertip alone in the cold air was a loss. It made her angry. Angry at Adora’s hole in Catra’s chest.

Catra wasn’t stupid. She knew what it would look like if she moped around now. She always found other ways.

"What? You mean this?" She was careful not to touch Adora’s lips this time, drawn into an expectant grin that made Catra’s chest quiver. "Just to show how easy it is to distract you!"

She gripped her uniform and threw her off to the side. Adora slipped to her feet in one swift motion. A light sparring match at a stupidly high place as this was just what Catra needed. Adora—all she needed.

* * *

And her hand was more often in Catra’s now. It was as calloused as hers. Their skin ground onthe other’s, they held firmly on to each other like on the hilt of a weapon. It was always Adora who extended hers first, asked for it tenderly or demanded it by one swift grip, no matter if it was in front of Lonnie and the others, in front of Shadow Weaver who narrowed her eyes at it and tilted her head, a gesture that made Catra’s stomach drop for some reason. Her arm was around Catra’s shoulder more often, around her hip which was somehow even worse to handle, especially when they were alone and Catra could really feel the heat that Adora filled into her chest through the opening.

Catra was quick to reciprocate. She loved this: to be one with Adora. She loved to sense that Adora too was feeling the need to make good on a loss that had never been.

They were sitting up high again and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, Adora wasn’t paying the horizon any heed. They were lying next to each other, feet dangling over the edge.

Catra had closed her eyes. She guessed that was why the ravaging, sad undertone in Adora’s voice caught her off guard.

"Catra?" She turned her head to look at Adora staring up to the sky. "Do you sometimes have this feeling as if something’s—I don’t know, wrong?"

She hid her uneasiness behind the usual cocky grin. "Um. No? What are you talking about?"

The weight on Adora’s whispering voice could not be lifted, however. A cold hand gripped Catra’s heart. "I don’t know. It’s like something deep inside of me tells me—it’s as if things aren’t as they should be."

Catra swept up to properly look at her, her voice cracking and betraying her. "What are you talking about? Things are perfect the way they are!"

Adora’s face was soft but in a wrong way, too sad, like none of the good Catra herself could hardly believe in was actually happening. Her smile turned into a line that was once crisp and clear but now blurring in a growing distance, washed-out by deep waters.

Adora sat up and touched Catra’s lips. It felt like a hushing gesture but she couldn’t find it in herself to be annoyed at that. Lips touched hers and all of her thoughts were channelled into one: how this was meant to be perfect—but it tasted like the end of the world.

* * *

The next moment was a new morning but Catra didn’t question it. She tried to ease Adora’s frown away but failed. Adora smiled at her when she woke up. They sparred, they had their arms around each other and it felt as real as ever.

Just in the next moment it all fell apart.

* * *

So they say it had never really happened. Just a swipe of a bunch of thoughts in some great network of transgressive dimensions connected by the portal—or whatever Hordak had mumbled the one time she had asked for answers.

Catra wants to believe it. She fills the hungry hole that sweet, little Adora had kindly left behind with new plans, new weapons and new orders. She makes Scorpia’s fear, Hordak’s hatred for the banished Entrapta and the fall of the queen of Brightmoon just so that it stuffs the opening in her chest. It may not be perfect but it’s still pretty neat and more than sufficient if she daresay so herself.

Only sometimes there are mornings that feel empty. She skips them and gets to work immediately. Only sometimes her hatred for Adora and her friends becomes so all-consuming that she can barely contain her rage. She doesn’t, obviously.

Only sometimes she looks up at the sky and when she stares into open space just long enough so that there is nothing else, Adora’s smile flickers from her false memory into reality for a moment as thin as a present that had never been more than a shared illusion. She has no time for this.

The future breaks in like a wave. The past has nothing to say anymore. There should be no room in her mind for the things that never were.


End file.
